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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Energy levels restoring

20 July 2013: It is some months since I produced an Energy Levels diagram, and since the tee-piece leak and the repair to the leak, it is time to do another. Just before the leak occurred, there was good sunshine and the levels were on the way up nicely. There was a period of time when I was waiting for the replacement tee, the scaffolding was up for a whole month. (The more recent leak of July was fixed so quickly, it doesn't cause a blip on the curve, because it was just equivalent to a couple of cloudy days.

Diagram: Produced by ArchiCAD, using author's data and algorithm July 2013

I'm not sure why the curve should drop so steeply at that point in May. Although May was cold, it wasn't cold enough to have the heating on, although hot water was still needed. It could suggest that the borehole had warmed up, but without the additional heat being added, the energy level was dispersing outwards because the temperature had risen to higher than would be normal for May without charging.

The Ground Temperature line looks slightly different. The recent winter was not particularly cold, but it was very long and dreary, so the winter curve is very wide, and the dodgy spring (combined with the leak in April May and the heat wave of July meant that there was a strange look to the curve climbing out of the winter into summer 2013. The fact that the ground temperature of 21.7.13 has dropped back to 13.7ºC reflects the energy curve (top), implying that the larger volume still needs more energy to be injected before equalling the energy levels of, say 2011.

March 2015: Work on the solar dehydrator has been progressing well, and it is nearly complete, lacking merely the top surface of the sola...

Peveril Solar House

Welcome to Charging the Earth!

PEVERIL SOLAR is the first house in the UK to be entirely solar heated all year round! It is Carbon Net-Zero. It is an 'Active House' balancing inputs and outputs. PV generation and heating system consumption are in favourable balance using concepts of energy storage. Others claiming houses to be the first date from 2013 (and are unbuilt); this house exists and was carbon zero since 2011.

The name 'Charging' refers to 'storing energy underground': we have custom-built solar collectors, Surya Sunboxes, with ETFE front surfaces, to pump solar heat deep down into the earth. The building's heat pump gets all of this back in Realtime (immediately), Diurnially (later during the evenings) or Interseasonally (in Winter, months after the Summer).

Thus, we are augmenting the heatpump by storing long term heat in the summer, and we are defrosting the ground in winter-spring conditions, supplying solar energy directly to the heat pump, through its ground loop.

The five-way pentangle of Grid, Borehole, Heat pump, PV roof and Sunboxes have made the house Carbon Zero (for metered consumption). It's working, and we will continue to record data, to maintain that efficiency, and write it up in this website through to next year and beyond.

During theAutumn of 2012, we built a small house extension that is ultra insulated, with a higher energy gain than it loses.

Note, that we still have a net import of power from the Grid, because we still need power for lighting, cooking and appliances. But for the building emissions (as opposed to lifestyle emissions), we have achieved a credit balance of the regulated quantities, as recorded by meters.

The web-log follows the project from this general idea in Aug. 2009 to a technology of Surya Sunboxes, which seem to be effective - reducing energy costs of the house. Some of the Tabs will help you to get background and theory. You can click below to 'Follow Blog' to get email notifications - or email me. Please add Comments to the blog entries. If you find items in the Glossary that need explaining better, please ask. Thankyou!

Publications

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Kingspan, for Varisol Tubes

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MG Renewables

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Ice Energy Heat Pumps

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Holscot, for ETFE panels, re-fronting the Sunbox

About the Author...

David Nicholson-Cole is a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Nottingham, with 35 years experience of architectural teaching and practice, which has included special interests in construction, building information modelling, tall building design and renewable energy technologies.

Finally, thanks to my deceased aunt, Margaret Cringle (1915-2008) whose legacy paid for most of the cost of this project - as one who was always turning lights out to save electricity, she would be very pleased!